I never thought that I’d see the day that the President of the United States was tweeting his political updates, and the old White House photographer was trolling Donald Trump on Instagram, but here we are, in the 21st Century.
Pete Souza, who brought White House photography into the modern age by updating the public through his social media channels, has been making a few subtle but brilliant jabs at the new blonde billionaire who has found himself in the Oval office.
He photographed Reagan, and the Obama’s, confessing his political leanings are democratic, but he has ‘always looked at this job as documenting for history. It was never about politics’.
Souza was just as sad as a lot of the public to see Barack Obama leave the White House, and has been expressing his grief through photography and subtle captions ever since.
On the day that the world learned of Trump’s discriminatory ‘Muslim ban’ that would stop people travelling from seven different Muslim countries to the USA, Souza simply posted a photo of Barack Obama ‘talking with a young refugee’ wearing a headscarf.
No dig was needed, as the differences between the leaders were illustrated plainly by the photo.
Then Souza made a more bold statement when it came to gender…
He showed a cropped photo of Obama’s meeting with his top advisors, showing them all to be women.
Pete said ‘I guess you’d say I was trying to make a point’ – aimed at Trump’s choice of team which is hugely dominated by white males.
CNN described Souza’s recent photo series as ‘A silent, social media, shade-throwing protest told in visuals’ – and the public have responded by commenting things like ‘More shade! Awesome!’ on his photos.
Souza didn’t need to say anything but it was obvious that his posts of Obama enjoying a tequila with the Mexican President, and being pally with the Australian leader were responses to the leaks that Trump had reportedly belittled both men on the phone.
My favourite of Souza’s taunts is the one relating to the lights in the Oval office…
This is a nod at the worrying reports that revealed Trump and his advisers had to have a meeting in the dark because they could not find the light switches in the cabinet room.
With a serious level of sass, Pete posted a photo simply captioned ‘Merrick Garland. Just Saying’.
This was a nod at Obama’s failed Supreme Court nominee who was not given a hearing by congress before Donald took office, the Washington Post reports.
Pete got the world to reminisce about that time a little boy called Alex wrote to Obama asking him to rescue an injured child in Syria (one of the countries included in Trumps ‘muslim ban’).
So many commenters constantly thanks Souza for sharing his photos and reminding people of Obama’s compassion.
Some of his captions are a bit more cryptic…
He wrote ‘Rock, paper, scissors. Might be worth a try.’ and showed Obama playing the classic game with a child.
With such a wealth of historical photographs, Pete is in the best position to post satirical content to help the world laugh so that we don’t cry.
